The CWO presents a (shortened) translation of reflections by a comrade of Battaglia Comunista on the anti-fascist demonstration in Rome on February 28. Nothing surprising, since we regularly translate our Italian comrades’ thoughts. However, on this occasion the Rome demonstration took place on the same day as CWO comrades were at the anti-PEGIDA demonstration in Newcastle so its message is...

The collapse in oil prices represents a significant blow for global speculation and thus a further intensification of capitalism’s crisis. It also heralds an increase in imperialist tensions with as yet untold consequences for the struggles, not just in the Middle East and the Ukraine, but in an increasingly competitive and aggressive wider world.

The following document contains the text of a leaflet given out by CWO North East members at the anti-Pegida demonstration in Newgate, Newcastle today. Close to 2000 demonstrators opposing PEGIDA were halted by police a few yards from a demonstration of 375 racists in the Bigg Market, a good portion of which were just the usual out and out fascist thugs.

The impressive victory of the left Social Democratic Party SYRIZA and the terrible defeat of the outgoing neoliberal government forces (New Democracy and PASOK) who had signed the memoranda, [1] is an important manifestation of the will of the vast majority of the Greek people to get rid of these detestable memoranda and their cruel catastrophic anti-worker and anti-social consequences.

Despite the second Minsk accord between the Kiev government and the Russian separatists of Donetsk and Lugansk signed on February 13 the agony of the people of Eastern Ukraine will go on. Already the human cost has been horrendous. According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 5,486 people have been killed and 12,972 wounded.

The article which follows is a translation of the main item in L’Internationale (March 2015) the French-language intervention broadsheet of the Internationalist Workers’ Group (GIO) which was distributed in the current student demonstrations in Montreal and Québec in which thousands turned out to protest not only over cuts in the education budget by the PLQ ((Parti Liberal Québecois or the...

Let’s start with the facts: there is no end to jihadist barbarism. So far a single order from IS has led to 23 deaths in Tunisia during an assault on the Bardo museum on the outskirts of the capital. It is the first time since the ‘jasmine revolution’, which overthrew Ben Ali and gave way to the so-called Arab Spring, that such an attack has been made against civilians, foreigners and European...

After the Budget it is clear that whoever wins the election so-called “welfare reform” will go on. Once upon a time “reform” meant improvement but since the post-war boom ended, as far as the working class is concerned, it now means “make things worse”. Capitalism in a historic crisis at the end of a cycle of accumulation can no longer afford what workers forced it to concede after World War Two.

Woe to you, Hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees! · "We have reached a difficult compromise, sometimes painful, but today we are in a better position with better conditions, and can argue and apply another policy that we promised and we are aiming towards." · Decision of the Central Committee of SYRIZA after the Eurogroup Meeting of 20/02/2015.

The CWO presents a (shortened) translation of reflections by a comrade of Battaglia Comunista on the anti-fascist demonstration in Rome on February 28. Nothing surprising, since we regularly translate our Italian comrades’ thoughts. However, on this occasion the Rome demonstration took place on the same day as CWO comrades were at the anti-PEGIDA demonstration in Newcastle so its message is...

Benefit Sanctions – A Cudgel to Beat the Sick and Powerless · The smug old Etonians who currently have their hands on the national piggy purse tell us that jobless figures have fallen once again. We are strangely unmoved and ungrateful at this “good news”. It is not the reality that many of us live through. We have seen the removal of the sick and disabled from the unemployed numbers.

In this short piece Damen goes right back to the revolutionary period sparked by the October Revolution in Russia and considers why it took so long for revolutionaries in Italy to break from the Socialist Party (PSI). This is not an academic question, especially for someone who lived through those turbulent times when, as he says, the situation was ‘incandescent’.

The moment of truth! · We would just like to make one comment on the context in which the negotiations of the new Syriza government with its partners, the nationalist right ANEL (Independent Greeks) unfolded. The non-negotiable part is that Greece has been and will remain a debt colony, regardless of whether the 'troika' is relabelled as 'the institutions', the 'Memorandum' has become 'the...

The following document contains the text of a leaflet given out by CWO North East members at the anti-Pegida demonstration in Newgate, Newcastle today. Close to 2000 demonstrators opposing PEGIDA were halted by police a few yards from a demonstration of 375 racists in the Bigg Market, a good portion of which were just the usual out and out fascist thugs.

There are some who believe that mistakes were made in the past, in the Arab Spring in general and against Gaddafi’s Libya in particular. We are talking here, of course, about those who populate the political world of the capitalist class and its business and economic undergrowth. Faced with the barbarity of the Islamic State and the horrors of the civil war in Libya, they forget their own...

The post war boom is now a thing of folk memory. We have had forty years of declining wages and living conditions. The harsh reality is that capitalism has no future to offer beyond escalating attacks on those who by accident of birth are not fortunate enough to belong to the privileged minority. Their wealth has increased by leaps and bounds as the austerity agenda for the rest of us bites ever...

About 7,000 or more workers in the Wisconsin university system, with 1.085 in the university are likely to be laid off in the latest round of austerity measures. The defeat four years ago carries its price. Of course, submitting to this without a fight simply invites more and greater ill treatment. University workers been assured that the layoffs will be spread evenly, so everyone's going to get...

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In evidence

Agenda

15 Apr
Durham Open Meeting

The Communist Workers’ Organisation (North East Section) holds regular meetings in Durham open to all who are interested in defending the independence of working class action These are usually on the third Wednesday of every month at 7.00 p.m. in

Alington House

4 North Bailey — Durham — DH1 3NP

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 15 April 2015. Main topic yet to be decided.

The CWO (Yorkshire) section will be holding a discussion forum in the Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair with the Free Communist (and possibly others). We don't yet have all the details as the organisers obviously have to coordinate a lot of different requests but the working title is

So many varieties of nationalism. Why we oppose them all.

The bookfair is on 16 May 2015 and you can find out more from www.sheffieldbookfair.org.uk

A judge has approved the California city of Stockton's bankruptcy filing, making it the most populous US city ever to enter bankruptcy protection.

The city of 290,000, 90 miles (144km) east of San Francisco, saw its tax base plummet in the US housing market crash.

Stockton's creditors - bond holders and insurers who had financed the city's debt - argued the city had not cut spending enough nor sought a tax increase to avoid bankruptcy. With the city now in bankruptcy, they may not be repaid their full principals.

But lawyers for the city said it had slashed its budget to the bone after a 70% decline in the city's tax base.

Officials were forced to make dramatic spending cuts to patch a budget deficit - roughly $26m (£17m) this year. The city eliminated a quarter of its police officers, one third of the fire department staff and 40% of all other employees. It also cut wages and medical benefits.

Stockton's unemployment and violent crime rates now rank among the worst in the nation.

The city's case was being watched closely by other struggling US cities and towns that may also seek bankruptcy protection.

Proposals to shut 14 mines in Poland have come up against strong resistance with miners taking to blocking railways and getting the threat of solidarity action from other workers as the following links show.

“As usual with miners or nurses, there were attempts at pitting other workers against them as a "privileged" group that lives like kings for taxpayers' money. But it didn't work – many people expressed their solidarity with them.”

The strike ended at the weekend with what “appears like a victory” for the miners. Our correspondent adds

“The protests have just ended with trade unionists signing an agreement with Prime Minister Kopacz yesterday. Apparently, no mine will be closed and no one will lose their job. Of course we yet have to see what will come out of that. Kopacz seemingly hadn't much choice – there are parliamentary elections in autumn this year, PO (Civic Platform – the right wing governing party) lost a lot of support in Silesia and Kaczyński (leader of the even more right wing Law and Justice Party) of course went there to feed on that (the "Solidarność" trade union is close to his party). And obviously, the main point of this deal seems to be the desire to base "Polish energy security on Polish coal".

Nikos Romanos has ended his hunger strike following the passage in parliament of an amendment that will allow him to leave prison fitted with an electronic bracelet provided he completes the first six months of his course behind bars.

Prior to the measure being adopted, the President of the Republic spoke on Wednesday morning with the Prime Minister via telephone after speaking with the opposition leader Alexis Tsipras.

The amendment submitted by the Justice Ministry was accepted by all opposition parties in parliament with the first being SYRIZA when Zoe Konstantopoulou announced that the party was withdrawing its demand for a roll call vote on the amendment.

According to the final amendment that was supported by all parties in parliament, students who are imprisoned following convictions or who are remanded in custody on charges including belonging to terrorist groups (as are pending against Romanos who is accused of participating in the domestic anti-establishment group ‘Conspiracy of Fire’) can be granted educational leave and fitted with electronic bracelets provided they have completed the first third of their studies by distance learning.

During a debate in parliament last night, Athanasiou initially rejected proposals submitted by SYRIZA and DIMAR that would allow Romanos and other inmates to leave prison to attend university provided they were fi...

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The CWO (Yorkshire) section will be holding a discussion forum in the Sheffield Anarchist Bookfair with the Free Communist (and possibly others). We don't yet have all the details as the organisers obviously have to coordinate a lot of different requests but the working title is

So many varieties of nationalism. Why we oppose them all.

The bookfair is on 16 May 2015 and you can find out more from www.sheffieldbookfair.org.uk

The Communist Workers’ Organisation (North East Section) holds regular meetings in Durham open to all who are interested in defending the independence of working class action These are usually on the third Wednesday of every month at 7.00 p.m. in

Alington House

4 North Bailey — Durham — DH1 3NP

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 15 April 2015. Main topic yet to be decided.

The Platform of the Internationalist Communist Tendency Revised English version (including postage in UK) 70p

For Communism An Introduction to the Politics of the ICT £3

Class Consciousness and Revolutionary Organisation The issue of “consciousness” is one of the most important for the working class and for revolutionaries. Our approach is unashamedly historical and attempts to draw out the real experience of the working class in its struggles of the last two centuries. 56pp £4

Trotsky, Trotskyism, Trotskyists How Trotsky, who made such an enormous contribution to revolutionary practice, ended up giving his name to a movement which returned to the counter-revolutionary errors of Social Democracy. £3

Stalin and Stalinism The lie that the former USSR was “really existing socialism” remains a potent weapon against the working class. This pamphlet not only examines the origins of the regime that emerged from the defeat of the October Revolution but also explains the motivations of Stalinism. £1

Holocaust and Hiroshima Examines how the nature of imperialist warfare comes to inflict mass murder on the world through an examination of these seminal events. 50p

Capitalism and the Environment (by Mauro Stefanini) Translated from Prometeo these articles were written some time ago but show that our late comrade was ahead of his time in analysing the unsustainability of capitalist production. £1

Spain *1934-39: From Working Class Struggle to Imperialist War* Reprint of key CWO articles long out of print and translations of contemporary documents from the Italian Left in exile. New introduction. £3

Platform of the Committee of Intesa 1925 (new edition) The start of the Italian Left’s fight against Stalinism as Fascism increased its grip. £3

South Africa’s New Turmoil An analysis of class relations in the period after the fall of apartheid thrown into relief by the strike wave which followed the Marikana massacres. £2

Behind the picture of Lenin on p. 36 the following section of text has been covered over. Our apologies – CWO.

topple the Provisional Government. However the rest of the class was not yet ready. The consequences of the failure of the June Offensive had not yet sunk in to a wider layer of the class. This the Bolsheviks, present in the factories, understood so the sailors action left them in a terrible dilemma. Here demonstrating below the balcony of the Kseshinskaia Palace, where the Bolsheviks had their headquarters, were thousands of armed sailors demanding that the Bolsheviks put themselves at the head of the demonstration (which, after all, only repeated the Bolshevik

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Journal of the Communist Workers’ Organisation -- Why not subscribe to get the articles whilst they are still current and help the struggle for a society free from exploitation, war and misery? Joint subscriptions to Revolutionary Perspectives (3 issues) and Aurora (our agitational bulletin - 4 issues) are £15 in the UK, €24 in Europe and $30 in the rest of the World.

Aurora is the broadsheet of the ICT for the interventions amongst the working class. It is published and distributed in several countries and languages. So far it has been distributed in UK, France, Italy, Canada, USA, Colombia.